IoT System Architecture

Definition

IoT = network of physical devices and smart objects that collect, send, and/or receive data.

Enables: near real-time data → automation, tight feedback loops, decisions without human intervention.

5-Component Stack

[1. Sensors]
     ↓
[2. IoT Devices] — compute + connect to cloud
     ↓
[3. Cloud Gateway / Hub] — ingests data, routes commands
     ↓
[4. Data Processing] — validate, alert, store, analyze
     ↓
[5. User Interface] — visualize, control, configure

Component	Role	Example
Sensors	Measure environment	temperature, GPS, humidity
IoT Devices	Compute + cloud connectivity	reTerminal, Raspberry Pi
Cloud Gateway	Secure ingestion, device management	Azure IoT Hub
Data Processing	Threshold checks, storage, alerts	Azure Functions, Event Hubs
User Interface	Visualization, manual control	dashboards, mobile apps

Consumer vs Industrial IoT

Type	Examples
Consumer IoT	Smart home, wearables, security cameras, smart appliances
Industrial IoT (IIoT)	Predictive maintenance (Rolls-Royce), precision farming (John Deere), remote mining (Rio Tinto), wind farm optimization

IIoT = main value: data-driven automation at industrial scale

Cloud Service Providers

1. Amazon Web Services (AWS)
2. Microsoft Azure — used in this course
3. Google Cloud

Telemetry

Data gathered from sensors and sent to the cloud = telemetry

Telemetry flows D2C (Device to Cloud); commands flow C2D (Cloud to Device).

Protocol Choice for IoT

Protocol	Use case
MQTT	Primary IoT protocol — lightweight pub/sub
HTTP	Less ideal — large headers, client must pull, no QoS
AMQP	Azure internal, more complex than MQTT

See Also

• MQTT and IoT Protocols topic
• Telemetry concept
• intro-to-iot source, iot-communication-protocols source